Owsley Wylyfyrd
Owsley Wylyfrd is an Arizona-based digital artist, whose works reflect through his individual mental space of human life experienced within the ambiguity of emotions that surface in the very process. In the recent interaction with him we dug into his process, thoughts and philosophy of navigation.
I am simply going to begin with, first of all, a very honest and deep appreciation of your work with a curiosity on wanting to know about your transitions, evolutions and overall development of artistic expressions anchoring on digital and virtual space.
I only stumbled into it about 9 months ago. I found it by accident. I had been doing a deep dive into electronic music (I still am) and realized that electronic artists were creating these fully immersive, real-time AV experiences that really closely resembled some…shall we say…transcendental states I’d been experiencing around that time. The modern godfathers of stage visuals in the rock world are Tool, and I had always figured they were the pinnacle of that kind of art. Since I had minimal experience with electronic music, I didn’t know just how much else was out there, and more importantly how DIY much of it is. I kept seeing the hashtag #touchdesigner on these posts that looked like things I’d experienced only in my mind, so I looked it up and started learning the software.
How was your childhood and overall growing up phase? What were the things you were angry or curious about? When it comes to social experience, did you face any difficulty or challenges? When did you come to the realization and an acknowledgment of being an artist?
My parents always valued money over everything, when it came to how me and my siblings chose to spend our time. As was their parents’ main concern. Much more than genetics get passed generationally. I’ve wanted to be an artist since I was a child, and it was encouraged right up until the point I was supposed to “get serious” about life. I think the switch from encouragement to active discouragement happened when I was a teenager. I’ve been playing music since I was 11 years old, but the level at which I want to do it has always been a point of contention with my family. I have spent years following the path I was more or less expected to, and have had a decent amount of success doing so. I am in the process of phasing out the marketing company I’ve run for the last 4 years because I have a deep psychological and emotional need to create art. It’s a privilege, to be sure, but having cash and work doesn’t do much good if you find yourself losing the will to live. Part of the need to be seen as an artist is probably the result of an old wound that was never meant to be inflicted, but it’s still important to me.
It is very evident that your work is surrounded by a transcendental state and involves pleasurable and almost hypnotic, healing and playful light atmospheres. Would you please tell me how and what made you do this? To simplify, what were the experiences that made you an artist and have this particular visual style and direction?
Funny you say that. Most of these works come from deep pain that I’m seeking relief from. I’ve seen and had transcendental experiences, some with the aid of drugs, some without. The art is an attempt to reconcile those with the struggle of just being human and alive. I’ve never met life so easily. It’s always felt like things other people find easy are difficult for me. I’ve never been good at doing shit for the sake of doing it, or because I was told to.
As to experiences, I mean, they’re all relevant in some way. It’s like we’re born into this thing and as soon as we’re getting used to being in it we find out it’s going to end someday, and of course we live in a culture that does its best to distract from and ignore that fact. So we’re born into this thing that we don’t have any real clue about, and then find out it’s going to get taken away, which must be bad because everyone acts like it’s bad. Then we get all these other rules and beliefs and traumas inflicted on us over time and we forget that we don’t know what this thing is…for me it just became fear. Life became equated with the fear of loss, of pain, and the reality of struggle to keep up with all these “rules” that are supposed to insure some semblance of happiness…and just getting deeper and deeper into the fear when following those rules didn’t produce the promised results. It’s easy to forget the rules were just made by other humans with as little clue as the rest of us. Pain and confusion were the only teachers that made me open to the transcendent. Until I’d suffered enough I was a very convinced atheist, materialist, and alleged pragmatist. They continue to teach me, although I could really do with some new curriculum. So anyway, I make things that look like what I’ve seen in those moments where everything has been ok. I also make things that resemble the emotions of a panic attack, or trying to process trauma, or a broken heart. I don’t know if being that vulnerable is a good thing, or if it’s even recognized by my viewers as such, but it is what keeps me creating.
What is your academic background and what are your feelings regarding the digital and technological evolution that is going on? What are the things you dislike the most about virtual and digital space? What do you wish people to be more sincere about?
I briefly went to school for classical guitar and mechanical engineering (I know, right?) and burnt out fast. I took like ten years off, and eventually went back to school and got a degree in web development and graphic design from ASU. It created a foundation for the work I’m doing now, though I didn’t know it at the time. Little did I know they offered a degree in immersive digital art, and one of the OGs of Touchdesigner education (Matthew Ragan) was teaching there! Oh well. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.
As to the digital evolution happening…I probably have the same mixed feelings as a lot of people, and others have probably articulated it better. The tech is just getting better and better. The level of art is too. The resources for literally anyone (even if the only computer you own is a smartphone) to create digital art are becoming more and more numerous and robust. Throw AI in the mix, and it’s a very exciting time to be in this space. That said, I’m neither stupid, nor tech-inept, but I’m totally confounded by web3. I get that the appeal of crypto is its decentralization, but that also means there’s no customer support or accountability when seemingly simple issues arise. The barrier to entry on most NFT marketplaces seems needlessly convoluted and complex, and it drives me up the wall when I see other artists seemingly having an easy time with it. But, it of course just represents a new opportunity that didn’t exist before, so regardless of how much difficulty I personally have with it, it’s just one more thing that exists that can potentially benefit the art community. I don’t see it as a bad thing (I don’t know enough about the environmental impacts to make any useful commentary there), but I do see it as a new thing with many a kink yet to be ironed out.
I wish people were more sincere about their struggles. The only balm for suffering sometimes is knowing you aren’t alone in it. Instead, I think many of us engage in judgment, projection, blame-placing to avoid admitting our own brokenness. Or we go the other direction and try to be perfect. The latter breeds workaholism, escapism and all manner of other mental health challenges. The entire culture backs this kind of behavior up too. I think if we would collectively acknowledge our own fucked-upness, cluelessness, and trauma, we might actually witness a shift in the way we exist as a species. At least we’d be starting from a foundation of truth instead of desperately trying to force a reality that doesn’t exist or even make sense. I probably sound like I’m yelling at these damn kids to get off my lawn, but there it is. Now I’ve said I’m old twice. I think I have a complex. I’m only 35.
Many of your works are symbiotic to quantum physics and represent fractals, microbiology, psychedelics and even mysticism touching a bit on theories of spirituality and the universe. So, I would like to know: What are your thoughts about spirituality? What do you choose to believe and live with?
I don’t understand it but I want to. I only see the hidden hand in retrospect. I don’t know how to reconcile the idea of the One, the All, Consciousness, Awareness, God, whatever you want to call it, with the duality of self and other. Maybe it’s that you can’t know oneness without knowing total separation from. But, if we’re all one, we’re alone as that one. So the wheel of suffering goes round again. I’m in the midst of a very trying time in my life, so it’s hard to keep the faith, so to speak. Dark night of the soul is fucking real. I feel kind of like Cypher in The Matrix, who saw the real world and was like, nope. I want to go back into the fantasy and remember nothing. I know that’s impossible, and that there’s always been awareness of something that gnaws at me. Perhaps even in my most asleep years I was just trying to keep myself preoccupied so I didn’t have to confront these existential questions. In 2020, after 12 years of total sobriety, I started taking psychedelics. I was at my wits end with depression, and years of therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes had done little to really improve the problem. I still use all of those tools, but I needed a major shakeup. I got one. Actually, I got a bunch. 5 dried grams of “penis envy” mushrooms one night woke me up to the non-linearity of time, the magic that is the spark of creation and possibility in us all, and the dread of realizing I had been repressing memories of trauma for years. Then I did probably 20-30 high-dose LSD sessions over the course of the next 18 months. If I might make a recommendation to anyone thinking that much usage is a good idea…it was too much. It never allowed me to integrate any of the parts of myself I was shown that I didn’t want to deal with. Wanting to go back and touch the transcendent over and over and over is itself a kind of trap. That much acid that often also has bizarre energetic side effects. My focus for the last year or so has been integrating all the shit that came up from those experiences WITHOUT tripping. I know that’s the last thing the enthusiastic psychonaut wants to hear, but the payment always comes due in one way or another. I look forward to a day when psychedelic medicine is legal, well-researched, and access to good therapists/guides/shamans who can help people navigate these powerful states is as easy as finding a dentist. I think it will help seekers avoid the pitfalls.
What are the intentions and senses you work through while creating your pieces? What do you want people to feel? What is the common message?
I’m just stabbing in the dark, honestly. Sometimes the pieces have intent, sometimes not. I’m still learning new techniques all the time so new pieces are frequently inspired by said techniques and general experimentation. The cool thing about generative art is that it’s as much discovery as it is creation. Pseudo-randomness, noise, feedback, diffusion, etc. all make many of the “decisions” for each piece.
The technical aspect of creating a digital piece of art involves a lot of layers and varied softwares and gadgets so what are your tools you are working with right now? What do you like and dislike about them? Any wish for technical ease and betterment?
I work almost exclusively in Touchdesigner. My only beef isn’t with them, it’s with Apple. Mac OS doesn’t support a lot of features that Windows machines do. Coming from the graphic design and video editing world, I’m pretty deeply entrenched in Mac, so I’m unfortunately limited on some of those features.
After collaborating with Stephen Hilton for binaural music that invites healing and meditation, what other kinds of collaborations do you foresee having? Music of course plays a very crucial role in the overall neural stimulation for art, what kind of music do you tap into while working?
We’re working on a second piece together already, and we’ve briefly discussed doing an installation together once conditions allow. I’d like to collaborate with some live bands. Generative art has mainly stayed in the EDM world, but it definitely works with some rock and metal music. I’ve been a Tool fanatic since I was in high school, so that would be a dream gig to land. I also live in Arizona, right up the road from Puscifer HQ, so ummm…cough cough…hire me guys. There are dozens of other great rock groups I’d like to work for, and there’s a lot of cool stuff happening in the mainstream pop world as well. Basically just any excuse to get my stuff on a huge LED wall, I’ll take it haha. I usually don’t listen to music at all while I’m working, partly because I usually work at night and my husband is sleeping. If I do, I tend to opt for mellow electronic music. It flows with the work. Snakes Of Russia and Inner Hill are recent discoveries that I’m totally in love with.
Last but not the least, where do you get inspired from? What is your source of challenge and excitement? What concepts and ideas are you now looking forward to working on?
Other artists. When I see something cool my first instinct is to figure out how they did it. I’m proficient enough at Touchdesigner now that I try to go from scratch and see how close I can get, but I used to immediately start scouring the web for tutorials. I’ve made lots of happy accidents that way. The bar is constantly being raised and new artists are joining the fray all the time. The challenge will be to stay frosty, as they say, and keep learning. It’s easy to get into a groove and stay there. Ultimately the goal is to create true real-time, audio reactive visuals for my band MEDIA. We don’t play to a click, so using timestamps isn’t an option. It will have to be true real-time with low enough latency to be usable. It will also have to be fully automated so we can tour without a dedicated video tech. That’s the current challenge. The work I’ve done toward that goal will start popping up in my IG feed very soon.
interview JAGRATI MAHAVER
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